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on Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty |
| By: | Brunori, Paolo (University of Florence); Ferreira, Francisco H. G. (London School of Economics); Neidhöfer, Guido (Turkish-German University) |
| Abstract: | How strong is the transmission of socio-economic status across generations in Latin America? To answer this question, we first review the empirical literature on intergenerational mobility and inequality of opportunity for the region, summarizing results for both income and educational outcomes. We find that, whereas the income mobility literature is hampered by a paucity of representative datasets containing linked information on parents and children, the inequality of opportunity approach – which relies on other inherited and pre-determined circumstance variables – has suffered from arbitrariness in model selection. Two new data-driven approaches – one aligned with the ex-ante and the other with the ex-post conception of inequality of opportunity – are introduced to address this shortcoming. They yield a set of new inequality of opportunity estimates for twenty-seven surveys covering nine Latin American countries over various years between 2000 and 2015. In most cases, more than half of the current generation's inequality is inherited from the past – with a range between 44% and 63%. We argue that on balance, given the parsimony of the population partitions, these are still likely to be underestimates. |
| Keywords: | inequality of opportunity, intergenerational mobility, Latin America |
| JEL: | D31 I39 J62 O15 |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17202 |
| By: | Lepinteur, Anthony (University of Luxembourg); Rebechi, Alessio (University of Luxembourg); Clark, Andrew E. (Paris School of Economics); D'Ambrosio, Conchita (University of Luxembourg); Rohde, Nicholas (Griffith University); Vögele, Claus (University of Luxembourg) |
| Abstract: | We use quarterly panel data from the COME-HERE survey covering five European countries to analyse three facets of the experience of loneliness during the COVID-19 pandemic. First, in terms of prevalence, loneliness peaked in April 2020, followed by a U-shape pattern in the rest of 2020, and then remained relatively stable throughout 2021 and 2022. We then establish the individual determinants of loneliness and compare them to those found in the literature predating the COVID-19 pandemic. As in previous work, women are lonelier, and partnership, education, income, and employment protect against loneliness. However, the pandemic substantially shifted the age profile: it is now the youngest who are the loneliest. We last show that pandemic policies affected loneliness, which rose with containment policies but fell with government economic support. Conversely, the intensity of the pandemic itself, via the number of recent COVID-19 deaths, had only a minor impact. The experience of the pandemic has thus shown that public policy can influence societal loneliness trends. |
| Keywords: | loneliness, COVID-19, COME-HERE, age, pandemic policies |
| JEL: | H51 I18 I31 |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17223 |
| By: | David G. Blanchflower; Alex Bryson; David N.F. Bell |
| Abstract: | We show the incidence of mental ill-health has been rising especially among the young in the years and especially so in Scotland. The incidence of mental ill-health among young men in particular, started rising in 2008 with the onset of the Great Recession and for young women around 2012. The age profile of mental ill-health shifts to the left, over time, such that the peak of depression shifts from mid-life, when people are in their late 40s and early 50s, around the time of the Great Recession, to one’s early to mid-20s in 2023. These trends are much more pronounced if one drops the large number of proxy respondents in the UK Labour Force Surveys, indicating fellow family members understate the poor mental health of respondents, especially if those respondents are young. We report consistent evidence from the Scottish Health Surveys and UK samples from Eurobarometer surveys. Our findings are consistent with those for the United States and suggest that, although smartphone technologies may be closely correlated with a decline in young people’s mental health, increases in mental ill-health in the UK from the late 1990s suggest other factors must also be at play. |
| JEL: | I31 |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32879 |
| By: | Caliendo, Marco (University of Potsdam); Mahlstedt, Robert (University of Copenhagen); Schmeißer, Aiko (University of Potsdam); Wagner, Sophie (University of Potsdam) |
| Abstract: | We study the accuracy of job seekers' wage expectations by comparing subjective beliefs to objective benchmarks using linked administrative and survey data. Our findings show that especially job seekers with low objective earnings potential and those predicted to face a penalty compared to their pre-unemployment wage display overly optimistic wage expectations. Moreover, wage optimism is amplified by increased job search incentives and job seekers with overoptimistic wage expectations tend to overestimate their reemployment chances. We discuss the labor market implications of wage optimism, as well as the role of information frictions and motivated beliefs as sources of overoptimism. |
| Keywords: | subjective expectations, objective benchmarks, job search, unemployment, reemployment wages |
| JEL: | D83 D84 J64 |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17198 |
| By: | Ramirez Lizardi, Eduardo (University of Oslo); Fevang, Elisabeth (Ragnar Frisch Centre for Economic Research); Røed, Knut (Ragnar Frisch Centre for Economic Research); Øien, Henning (Norwegian Institute of Public Health) |
| Abstract: | Using Norwegian administrative register data, we assess the impact of health shocks hitting lone parents, specifically stroke and hip fractures, on labor market outcomes and the well-being of adult offspring. We identify small, but statistically significant immediate responses in terms of an increase in physician-certified sickness absences and a higher risk of diagnosed mental disorders. However, these effects tend to fade out quickly, and the negative impacts on subsequent employment and earnings are small and only borderline statistically significant. In general, our results suggest that the responses to the deteriorating health of a parent tend to be short-lived and mostly manifest as temporary absences from work rather than complete detachment from the labor market. |
| Keywords: | health shocks, labor supply, mental health, informal care, parental health, event-studies |
| JEL: | I12 I31 J14 J22 |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17232 |